Slashdot Mirror

With the Earth-Moon system, you are citing the most extreme non-stellar case known, with two bodies close to each other which are of similar size. This system will in the end lock into a system where both bodies have a bound rotation, but the timescale of this is long (by observation more than 4.5 billion years). Note that in this case, different from what you imply, the semi-major axis of the system increases and that generally for two-body systems with a tidal exchange one tends to see a circularization of the orbit (see, e.g., Hilditch, An Introduction to Close Binary Systems, CUP, 2001). Again, such effects would stop the planet from falling into its star.

The case under discussion here more resembles the Galilean moons (several small bodies next to a large one), which is what is called in the Laplace resonance. While again there is lots of angular momentum exchange between these moons (e.g., responsible for the heating of Io), but again overall that system can be considered stable, at least according to current simulations (see, e.g., the paper by Musotto et al., accessible via http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-bib_query?bi bcode=2002Icar..159..500M). Point in case: observationally we KNOW that the system has existed for 4.5 billion years.

So, to summarize, not much danger here for the planet!

With the Earth-Moon system, you are citing the most extreme non-stellar case known, with two bodies close to each other which are of similar size. This system will in the end lock into a system where both bodies have a bound rotation, but the timescale of this is long (by observation more than 4.5 billion years). Note that in this case, different from what you imply, the semi-major axis of the system increases and that generally for two-body systems with a tidal exchange one tends to see a circularization of the orbit (see, e.g., Hilditch, An Introduction to Close Binary Systems, CUP, 2001). Again, such effects would stop the planet from falling into its star.

The case under discussion here more resembles the Galilean moons (several small bodies next to a large one), which is what is called in the Laplace resonance. While again there is lots of angular momentum exchange between these moons (e.g., responsible for the heating of Io), but again overall that system can be considered stable, at least according to current simulations (see, e.g., the paper by Musotto et al., accessible via http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-bib_query?bi bcode=2002Icar..159..500M). Point in case: observationally we KNOW that the system has existed for 4.5 billion years.

So, to summarize, not much danger here for the planet!

With the Earth-Moon system, you are citing the most extreme non-stellar case known, with two bodies close to each other which are of similar size. This system will in the end lock into a system where both bodies have a bound rotation, but the timescale of this is long (by observation more than 4.5 billion years). Note that in this case, different from what you imply, the semi-major axis of the system increases and that generally for two-body systems with a tidal exchange one tends to see a circularization of the orbit (see, e.g., Hilditch, An Introduction to Close Binary Systems, CUP, 2001). Again, such effects would stop the planet from falling into its star.

The case under discussion here more resembles the Galilean moons (several small bodies next to a large one), which is what is called in the Laplace resonance. While again there is lots of angular momentum exchange between these moons (e.g., responsible for the heating of Io), but again overall that system can be considered stable, at least according to current simulations (see, e.g., the paper by Musotto et al., accessible via http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-bib_query?bi bcode=2002Icar..159..500M). Point in case: observationally we KNOW that the system has existed for 4.5 billion years.

So, to summarize, not much danger here for the planet!

OCW@MIT: Java Preparation
http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Electrical-Engineering-a nd-Computer-Science/6-092January--IAP--2006/Course Home/index.htm

OCW@MIT: Software Engineering for Web Applications
http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Electrical-Engineering-a nd-Computer-Science/6-171Fall2003/CourseHome/index .htm

Webcast@Berkeley: With real video and/or MP3 : Data Structures
http://webcast.berkeley.edu/courses/archive.php?se riesid=1906978271

Web development using XML:
http://cscie153.dce.harvard.edu/

There's also another concept which helps free software to be more virus resistant : it's its diversity.

There are dozen of different distros out there, each using a different kernel, built using a different version of gcc, software linked against different libraries. Compare this to windows. The 12 different flavors of Vista that are announced are basically exactly the same OS with different functions crippled depending on the flavor. But same fucking kernel compiled with the same stupid Visual studio, linking against the same libraries.

Same reasoning could be made for architecture, Linux is does *NOT* equate to "Intel x86" (whatever do think the commmercial developpers who ship binary-only driver). You can get it on PPC, Spac, ARM, whatever else.
With some historical isolated exceptions (Alpha, Itanium), windows runs only on x86 and derivated (AMD64) architectures.

Now take in account all the customisation that end users may have made (running custom-build kernels with different optimization is very common amongst advanced linux users) which is plain impossible (except for a few gov or mil organization, nobody has access to Windows kernels).

All this leads to one conclusion : it's damn hard to have a single binary that can be run accros all possible linux installations. That's something commercial developper have to put up with. And they usually comme up with a collection of multiple packages that can run on a very specific subset of distributions (see this soft I've recently downloaded as an exemple).

For a viruses it's even harder, because the viruses must be small enough to fit inside the e-mail or the exploit's payload. So there's no option to do huge binaries with every library dependency statically compiled in (like OpenOffice.org does) or using multi-architecture binaries (like Fat-binaries on Mac).

Viruses also highly depend on specific version of kernels and libraries to be able to exploit bugs, escalate access rights, etc. There are some efforts to provide a standarised subset of libraries, etc.. (see LSB) so binary applications could be easier to make. But be sure you'll never see such an idiocy as a LSB certified, standarized exploitable kernel bug !

So, if a virus is designed in the traditionnal Windows way, it'll only be able to annoy a very small subset of all users, and only for a short period of time (version update are more frequent in Linux world - new distro every few months - than in Windows world - new OS every few year).
So yes, you're right *in theory* : there could be users dumb enough to enter their root password just to get a nice KDE applet showing the weather. But most of the time the virus it self won't be able to make it to the "asking-root-password" stage and are very likely to crash before, due to missing libraries or incompatible ABI.

The very single thing that pisses of first time Windows-to-Linux switchers - that they can't just download random SETUP.EXE files and install every crapware by clicking on it - is what protects linux users from being vulnerable to spywares and virus.

Then how are software distributed on Linux, is it possible for a virus to take this way ?
On linux there's a few different way to get new software for you system.
- For those who want bleeding edge software : getting software distributed as source and custom-compiling them. It's not trivial (see the "couldn't play Quake on Linux" trolls lying around slashdot). And in my humble opinion, the kind of idiots that just clic "yes" and give root password everywhere won't be able to do it. On the other hand, you pointed to these viruses in EXE-packed-in-password-protected-ZIP. (At least, if there's some "here's a cool source code, and those are the instruction to get it running" worm, it'll show the "quake-on-linux" trolls proof that even compiling isn't that much complicated). Very unlikely.

- The standart way most user, even

You and I both don't consider it as hacking, but then there are all the other people out there who do...

Reuters Accused Of Hacking For Typing In URL
Business schools redefine hacking to "stuff that a 7-year-old could do"

"Why? Why are online scams so much more successful than offline?"

Dhamija, R., Tygar, J. D., and Hearst, M. 2006. http://people.deas.harvard.edu/~rachna/papers/why_ phishing_works.pdfWhy Phishing Works. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (Montréal, Québec, Canada, April 22 - 27, 2006). CHI '06. ACM Press, New York, NY, 601-610

Wu, M., Miller, R. C., and Garfinkel, S. L. 2006. http://groups.csail.mit.edu/uid/projects/phishing/ chi-security-toolbar.pdfDo security toolbars actually prevent phishing attacks?. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (Montréal, Québec, Canada, April 22 - 27, 2006). CHI '06. ACM Press, New York, NY, 601-610

Found your comment interesting, so I googled it and found this very interesting. Thought others might find it a good summary.

Click on the top link about borneo on this Harvard Page

Or, more on topic, how the WHO screwed over Borneo by recklessly spraying DDT without first examining its effects on the local population. They ended up very likely causing more deaths than the malaria outbreak originally would have.

And I suppose that the cats parachuted into Borneo to stop a plague epidemic after DDT destroyed the local cat population were 'bad science' too?

Look, DDT has uses. It can be useful under proper control. But we don't exactly have a good track record of handling these things. And DDT does destroy ecosystems. It has. That's fact. That's not bad science. It happened.

It's healthy to be skeptical of its use. History is littered with examples where we just tried to mildly affect an ecosystem and ended up demolishing it, causing far more harm than good. I could go on, and on, and on...

http://www.med.harvard.edu/publications/On_The_Bra in/Volume3/Number4/Cochlear.html

Upgrades tend to be painfull.

You obviously don't do much reading on parenting techniques.

Letting a baby cry it out is so... 1980's American.

http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/1998/04.09/Chi ldrenNeedTou.html

and its biologically incorrect. A mother's milk lets down when her baby cries because evolution has designed the human parenting system to work that way. Baby cries, mother feeds and comforts.

http://www.askdrsears.com/html/5/T051200.asp#T0512 04

However, it is often convenient to the parent to let a baby cry. I'm sure we all know how much Americans dislike being interrupted from their pursuit of the American Dream (and watching American Idol, of course!)

But, what the hell would I know. I'm only the mother of 5 kids, 4 months to 15 years.

Whitesides made water run uphill 14 years ago! He used a different "trick" though: he made a surface that was very hydrophobic on one side, and very hydrophilic on the other. A drop of water feels this gradient and moves towards the hydrophilic side, even if it happens to be uphill. The energy comes from the surface tension of the drop (it relaxes as it moves).

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1992Sci...256.1539C

Here is a doc that describes how I cured my "RSI":
http://www.rsi.deas.harvard.edu/handout.doc

or Google view as HTML

Sounds crazy, but actually makes sense once you read and understand it.

Google for "sarno tms" for more info...

I think the big key to participating in "mass minds" is to realize that the "mass mind" is not going to be your mind, writ large, neither in theory nor in practice.

Your vote matters, but it matters as much as everybody else's. It's not supremely important.

Your comment matters, but it matters as much as everybody else's. It's not supremely important.

And this is what the mass mind will look like; a whole lot of people arguing and coming to very rough consensus. It's never going to converge on a set of opinions that exactly match your own.

This may sound obvious when I say it that way, but I'm quite certain a lot of people's disenchantment with participating in these sorts of mass minds (as prototyped by the "body politic" and now popping up everywhere thanks to the Internet) is because they go into it with the idea that they only "win" if the mass mind thinks exactly like them, which rather misses the point entirely. If everybody's not losing a little bit, the system isn't working right. "A good compromise is when all parties are equally unhappy."

One of the things that made me laugh about blogging is that there were a lot of people that were firmly convinced that it was finally going to sweep the world and basically make it hold the "smart" opinions, which by an incredible coincidence just happened to be the opinions these people already held. Here's one of the most egregious examples of that. (My personal opinion is that it tends to drag the system away from the parochial opinions of the relatively few gatekeepers in the existing communications media, and drag it back towards the true ideological average of the participants. I leave as an exercise for the reader exactly what that translates to in ideological terms.)

from their record contracts.

Several of Sarah McLachlan's CDs are DRM'd:

http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/004144.php
http://hcs.harvard.edu/~freeculture/wiki/index.php /DRM

(data unavailable for the other members, but it wouldn't surprise me), and almost all (Broken Social Scene and possibly a couple others being exceptions) are currently signed to RIAA/CRIA member labels. Most have released albums with those labels in the last couple years - i.e., since the campaign of lawsuits started.

Put your money where your mouth is, folks.

I just hope they don't patent it!

If you are using a straight rectangular keyboard that isn't at the proper height, pounding on it with your fingers and strained wrists, and feel you need to type 100 wpm in order to be productive, then its your own damn fault!

Sorry, but no. Even that doesn't cause CTS. (summary if you don't want to pay) Occurances, by percentage, of CTS in computer users is not elevated. Most computer users who have signifigant pain which they call CTS is really either something else, or caused by some other activity. Repetitive strain injuries are not Carpal Tunnel Syndrome! Surgery won't fix them. You have to fix your bad habits.

You can give yourself some nasty RSIs if you have poor posture and habits, but typing fast or using a regular keyboard don't imply that you are doing either of those things. Fancy ergonomic devices are just aids, not solutions. Think of them like the little rubber thing your elementrary school teacher used to use to get you to hold your pencil properly.

NO employer should refuse to let you bring in your own keyboard, mouse, even chair, if they do, find other employment.

That I'm in total agreement with.

I cured my RSI using this "mindbody" approach:
http://www.rsi.deas.harvard.edu/handout.doc
or Google view as HTML

I now firmly believe that "RSI" is caused by psychological reasons (though it does exhibit actual physical symptoms). I know that is hard to grasp, and long-time sufferers will disagree with me, but read the document I linked to and some of Dr. John E. Sarno's writings if you are interested.

EEG's (the basis of the devices in the article) are passive - they only measure the electric field around your head. They read voltage potentials, not generate them :P

"Electroencephalogram (EEG) and Evoked Potentials (EPs) have the advantages of great temporal resolution and a direct relation to neuronal information-processing. Information is carried between neurons, and is integrated within neurons via current flowing across active brain synapses. In some circumstances, the resulting net extracellular current flow can be recorded on the scalp as the EEG. That is, the EEG is the result of the passive instantaneous electrical propagation from active brain synapses to the scalp recording electrode. When the EEG is averaged with respect to a repeated behavioral event, random background EEG will cancel and only that part of the EEG (termed the EP) related to the behavioral event will remain. Careful examination of EPs across many tasks and subjects has demonstrated that they are composed of a series of components, each defined by its latency, polarity, scalp topography, and behavioral correlates. Successive EP components are related to successive stages in information-processing, from the strictly sensory to the highest integrative levels, termed 'endogenous.' Since these EP components are generated by synaptic current flows, they provide a critical link between cognitive and neural processes."

from here

> The claim of any "moral" rights is so assinine I almost don't know what to say about it.
> The law does not recognize "moral" rights.

Doesn't it?

Eben Moglen - a programmer who is now a Free Software Lawyer - has the answer!

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/moglen-harvard-speec h-2004.html

OR watch the video here:
can copy this into Real Player "File->Open Location"
http://media.law.harvard.edu:8888/ramgen/jolt/spri ng_04/2004-02-23_ae_0630-0830.rm
Other videos (along with this listed here):
http://jolt.law.harvard.edu/speakers/

Q: But what about the software writer?

Moglen: Ah, the software. . .

Q: That's the kind of stuff I think I was more getting at with my question. So you have somebody who creates something useful but it has a zero distribution cost, and it's useful in a way that's not, not useful like celebrity, though I'm not sure, I don't think that's useful in some ways, but it's useful in the different sense that it takes a long time to create well.

Moglen: See, the programmers I worked with all my life thought of themselves as artisans, and it was very hard to unionize them. They thought that they were individual creators. Software writers at the moment have begun to lose that feeling, as the world proletarianizes them much more severely than it used to. They're beginning to notice that they're workers, and not only that, but if you pay attention to the Presidential campaign currently going on around us, they are becoming aware of the fact that they are workers whose jobs are movable in international trade.

We are actually doing more to sustain the livelihood of programmers than the proprietary people are. Mr. Gates has only so many jobs, and he will move them to where the programming is cheapest. Just you watch. We, on the other hand, are enabling people to gain technical knowledge which they can customize and market in the world where they live. We are making people programmers, right? And we are giving them a base upon which to perform their service activity at every level in the economy, from small to large.

There is programming work for fourteen-year-olds in the world now because they have the whole of GNU upon which to erect whatever it is that somebody in their neighbourhood wants to buy, and we are making enough value for the IBM corporation that it's worth putting billions of dollars behind.

If I were an employee of the IBM corporation right this moment, I would consider my job more secure where it is because of free software than if free software disappeared from the face of the earth, and I don't think most of the people who work at IBM would disagree with me.

Of all the people who participate in the economy of zero marginal cost, I think the programmers can see most clearly where their benefits lie, and if you just wait for a few more tens of thousands of programming jobs to go from here to Bangalore, they'll see it even more clearly.

Eben Moglen - a programmer who is now a Free Software Lawyer - has the answer!

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/moglen-harvard-speec h-2004.html

OR watch the video here:
can copy this into Real Player "File->Open Location"
http://media.law.harvard.edu:8888/ramgen/jolt/spri ng_04/2004-02-23_ae_0630-0830.rm
Other videos (along with this listed here):
http://jolt.law.harvard.edu/speakers/

Q: But what about the software writer?

Moglen: Ah, the software. . .

Q: That's the kind of stuff I think I was more getting at with my question. So you have somebody who creates something useful but it has a zero distribution cost, and it's useful in a way that's not, not useful like celebrity, though I'm not sure, I don't think that's useful in some ways, but it's useful in the different sense that it takes a long time to create well.

Moglen: See, the programmers I worked with all my life thought of themselves as artisans, and it was very hard to unionize them. They thought that they were individual creators. Software writers at the moment have begun to lose that feeling, as the world proletarianizes them much more severely than it used to. They're beginning to notice that they're workers, and not only that, but if you pay attention to the Presidential campaign currently going on around us, they are becoming aware of the fact that they are workers whose jobs are movable in international trade.

We are actually doing more to sustain the livelihood of programmers than the proprietary people are. Mr. Gates has only so many jobs, and he will move them to where the programming is cheapest. Just you watch. We, on the other hand, are enabling people to gain technical knowledge which they can customize and market in the world where they live. We are making people programmers, right? And we are giving them a base upon which to perform their service activity at every level in the economy, from small to large.

There is programming work for fourteen-year-olds in the world now because they have the whole of GNU upon which to erect whatever it is that somebody in their neighbourhood wants to buy, and we are making enough value for the IBM corporation that it's worth putting billions of dollars behind.

If I were an employee of the IBM corporation right this moment, I would consider my job more secure where it is because of free software than if free software disappeared from the face of the earth, and I don't think most of the people who work at IBM would disagree with me.

Of all the people who participate in the economy of zero marginal cost, I think the programmers can see most clearly where their benefits lie, and if you just wait for a few more tens of thousands of programming jobs to go from here to Bangalore, they'll see it even more clearly.

It's not about testing humans for alertness, you misunderstand the purpose of the lures.

The fake bomb images are there to IMPROVE performance.

The DHS & TSA fund research into optimizing human search. This implementation is a practical application of very recent research.

I refer you to
http://search.bwh.harvard.edu/pdf/WolfePrevalenceN ature05.pdf

which is part of the research of Jeremy Wolfe's lab
http://search.bwh.harvard.edu/

Just read the first the first few paragraphs of the Nature paper I linked to understand the point.

It's not about testing humans for alertness, you misunderstand the purpose of the lures.

The fake bomb images are there to IMPROVE performance.

The DHS & TSA fund research into optimizing human search. This implementation is a practical application of very recent research.

I refer you to
http://search.bwh.harvard.edu/pdf/WolfePrevalenceN ature05.pdf

which is part of the research of Jeremy Wolfe's lab
http://search.bwh.harvard.edu/

Just read the first the first few paragraphs of the Nature paper I linked to understand the point.

Those are just to catch poor performers and weed them out, but they aren't frequent enough to keep people on their toes. You would need hundreds of such actors working at airports day and night for this purpose.

Here's some research.

http://search.bwh.harvard.edu/pdf/WolfePrevalenceN ature05.pdf

What brainiac thought this one up?

Jeremy Wolfe, possibly the world's foremost expert on human performance in visual search tasks did.

You can read about his research on his publications page here.

http://search.bwh.harvard.edu/recent_publications. htm

Check out the one called "Rare items often missed in visual searches. " This research, among others in the field, is funded by the DHS for precisely this purpose. May I add that the turnaround time from primary research to application is excellent. Jeremy and his lab are to be commended as an example of how pure research can contribute directly to the public good.

And why would you want an adrenaline rush anyway?

When Robert Plummer states that artists need to charge more for their concerts to make up for sagging records sales due to file sharing, he conveniently leaves out the important fact that it is only the most popular artists that actually see a decline. As David Blackburn of Harvard illustrated in his paper, On-Line Piracy and Recorded Music Sales (PDF warning), the record sales of relatively unknown artists benefit from the exposure P2P file sharing gives them.

So, if the big names want to charge outrageous sums for their concerts, let them. As of now, the tatic seems to be working, but as the situation develops, I think they'll wind up pricing themselves right out of the market.

According to the CIA's own figures the USA's world share of GDP (purchasing power parity) has fallen to 20%.

I'm over forty years old. I have lived though, vividly remember and fully comprehend the late 1970s oil crisis, New Zealand's own 1984 balance of payments crisis and the 1987 share market crash. My Father was born a year after the 1926 stock market crash and is well acquainted with the effects of the resulting depression. I have repeatedly seen fools and so called wise men throw their fortunes on various markets and schemes based upon expected high return on investment. Eventually and inevitablely the pyramid schemes -- for in the end that's all the revolving investment schemes are -- collapse.

I am fully aware of attempts to prop up and explain away the current US deficits, but, if you bother to read though the texts you will find the same language and faulty logic that was used to explain away the sustainability of pre-1987 junk bonds. It did not work then, and without radical adjustments, the system will fail again.

I'm told that countries like Sweden still have pensions that pay out but that China has "reformed" theirs. $400,000,000 for Windoze ... big dumb US companies do the same thing. Hmmm.

I believe the Party will continue on its path of liberalization as a younger, more cosmopolitan generation of Oxford- and Columbia-educated Chinese accedes to power. Who needs revolution, after all, when you can build democracy from within?

I hope "liberalization" happens. Internet censorship and stories about political dissidents being murdered for sale of their organs make me think actual discourse is dangerous at best. Without a free press there is no telling what's actually happening, except that someone does not want the story told.

It is patently obvious that domain names are worth their MASS in gold, mass being a measure of the degree to which the domain name warps space-time about it. Massive (and therefore valuable) domain names attract web traffic effortlessly; it has been observed that some massive domains absorb apparantly endless amounts of energy, grossly increasing their value in gold.

Although earlier views held that this energy or effort, once absorbed, was gone forever, some very massive domains now appear to retain information in recoverable formats, with the attendant risk of uncontrolled release of dangerous amounts of information or its conversion into anti-information... but I digress...

Put it in the fridge.

Actually, they can get a little smarter than that. A recent study at Harvard:
http://people.deas.harvard.edu/~rachna/papers/why_ phishing_works.pdf
showed up that, even seasoned users that should know better can fall for it.
Would you recognise http://www.bankofthevvest.com/ as false?

Remember the paper from Harward dealing with phishing and why it works?

People don't even notice security features. They don't notice HTTPS, they don't notice certificates, they don't even notice bogus URLs. Why should they notice a "verified" mail (or lack of this verification)?

And those who do already know how to deal with phishing mails, they are already capable of discriminating between fraudulent and legit mails.

"Quantum fluctuations" is a widely recognized phrase in physics, used variously to refer to uncertain outcomes of quantum mechanics:

A book by Edward Nelson of CMU in the Princeton Series in Physics: http://www.math.princeton.edu/~nelson/books/qf.pdf
From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_fluctuation
From a physics lecture at the University of Oregon (the mention is about halfway down the page): http://zebu.uoregon.edu/~js/ast123/lectures/lec17. html
From Encyclopaedia Britannica: http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-64917
From an article in New Scientist: http://www.ldolphin.org/qfoam.html
A paper from the Division of Engineering and Applied Science, Roxbury Community College/Harvard: http://www.eduprograms.deas.harvard.edu/reu03_pape rs/Lopez.C.FinReport03.pdf
Theses at Penn State: http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/31075.html

A book from the World Scientific Series in Contemporary Chemical Physics: http://www.worldscibooks.com/physics/5952.html

My argument fits the term as used in any one of these sources, or in the half-million others that can be found with a two-second Google search.

The FairTax taxes consumption.
And one acquire things to consume with...income? Not necessarily. With resources - ie, wealth (unless you're the government, or a thief, in which case it is done with force).

you can find people there to support all manner of crackpot schemes
This doesn't mean that there cannot be someone among the crackpots might have a good idea.

I don't see that they found one to support the FairTax.
Just as an example of one of the many places you'll find them supporting it, if you take the time to do some reading:
From Dr. Jorgenson of Harvard's Department of Economics, in this document
"If we had enacted a FairTax ten years ago, we would each be ten percent better off today."
But like you said, this does nothing to convince you. Some folks are pretty set in their ways...

For the record, I'm old and loaded
In that case, you may find #5 more interesting.

in the long term, I think our economy would collapse
That's interesting- why do you think that?

Yes, I heard that part. I think it's insufficient
You think the prebate is insufficient? Why? And what would be "sufficient" in your opinion? More to the point, how do you define sufficient in this case?

While this back and forth bickering is fun and all
I wouldn't call it bickering, and it's more than useless fun. It's a productive dialouge for exchaning ideas. Thru this record of communication, I'm getting an understanding of why people oppose the FairTax, while others (and maybe you) are coming to learn why one should support it.

who pays more than they do under our current system, and why is that a good idea?
First, I'd refer you to #8, then to go a step further and answer your question about where does all the money come from to make it revenue neutral: It comes from those who don't pay income taxes now- drug dealers, the porn industry, special interests and income tax loophole exploiters and the like. As they begin paying taxes thru the national retail sale tax, they pick up the slack that they've been eluding in our current system.
As for why is this a good idea- because it's fair.

The whole nature Vs nurture debate is an artificially dichotomised thing.
It's not one or the other, it's both nature and nurture.

I haven't done any reading on this subject for a few years (so sorry if my facts are out of date) but evidence has been found that brain damage can be linked to child abuse and neglect. Child abuse .

You can have great genes for intellegence (nature) but if you get no stimulation or abused as a child (nurture), it can have an effect on the physical development of your brain and hence on your intellegence.

Both nature and nurture are critical for healthy development.

How completlely predictably stupid. This chapter in the ever-continuing saga of "idea ownership" that was brought about by the terrible terrible legal precedent in 1998 (State Street Bank & Trust Co. v. Signature Financial Group, Inc), is marking a major decline in both the freedom of the market as well as potentially, freedom of the individuals who participate in that market.

I'm very lacking of pity for Microsoft, IBM and other patent-warchest-holding companies... but this insanity with the submarine patents (esp. on business ideas) has got to stop.

> Go here to find out what a big racist, jingoist, judgemental biggot you are:
> https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/

Yawn. The test is worthless because it relies on flawed assumptions. In particular, the FAQ claims that there should be no familiarity effects, since the faces are computer-generated, yet any face that is recognizeably Euro-derived will have characteristic Euro-features, and hence will trigger our greater familiarity with those Euro-features (due to their position as large-majority population of the US).

Since they not only failed to recognize that, but argued that there was no familiarity effect, I can't help but conclude that their study methodology contains enough other flaws to render it worthless as science. Good for pushing a point of view, maybe, but not science.

Go here to find out what a big racist, jingoist, judgemental biggot you are:
https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/

Go here to find out what a big racist, jingoist, judgemental biggot you are:
https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/

Many linguists disagree with Pinker, and he is by no means in the majority with his suppositions.

I've read your posts. You seem to have been convinced by a very good writer that he has the inside track on the truth.

However, to give you some perspective, Noam Chomsky disagrees with him. He's not the only one.

http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~mnkylab/publications/l anguagespeech/EvolLangFac_Cognition.pdf

Pinker did the same thing to you that he does to so many others. He convinced you with flowery porse that disguised the lack of empirical support for his idea of "evolutionary psychology".

Pinker isn't in the majority. How you could be a linguistics student and believe this is beyond me.

Oh yes, because OUR system works so well, with those Senators getting down on their knees and puckering up to any large corporation with a few million bucks every six years. (Granted, they don't seem to be as blindly bad as some members of the House, but that's a pretty low bar these days.)

The UK system of government undoubtedly has its share of problems, but the House of Lords isn't it.

Except for the fact that it's not a sort of thing that you can just create (it's more something that you can only have, if it's been in existence since before the rest of the government formed) I'd say that it wouldn't be such a bad idea to do something like that here, in my more exasperated moments. In theory, it's a pretty good idea -- a bunch of people who aren't subject to the whims of fat-walleted corporate/PAC pimps and who have no other function in the government aside from taking the longest possible view. (Arguably this is the function of the USSC here, I suppose.)

The purpose that our Senate was originally supposed to serve, namely to be a brake on the other half of the Legislature, it seems to regularly fail to do; each party's House and Senate contingents seem to be in lock-step on all but the smallest details (you generally have to get down to the wording of particular bills to find differences between Senate and House versions, the intent is rarely very different on major issues). So I'm not sure that I would be dismissing the concept of a House of Lords so quickly. If I were a UK citizen (subject?) I'd be awfully reticent to throw away anything that might act as a brake on the rest of government, however anachronistic it might seem. If they were trying to drag the entire country back to the 17th century I might feel less cautious, but it doesn't seem like there's any evidence of that.

However bad you think your government is now, with enough meddling it could always get spectacularly worse in a hurry.

Oh yes, because OUR system works so well, with those Senators getting down on their knees and puckering up to any large corporation with a few million bucks every six years. (Granted, they don't seem to be as blindly bad as some members of the House, but that's a pretty low bar these days.)

The UK system of government undoubtedly has its share of problems, but the House of Lords isn't it.

Except for the fact that it's not a sort of thing that you can just create (it's more something that you can only have, if it's been in existence since before the rest of the government formed) I'd say that it wouldn't be such a bad idea to do something like that here, in my more exasperated moments. In theory, it's a pretty good idea -- a bunch of people who aren't subject to the whims of fat-walleted corporate/PAC pimps and who have no other function in the government aside from taking the longest possible view. (Arguably this is the function of the USSC here, I suppose.)

The purpose that our Senate was originally supposed to serve, namely to be a brake on the other half of the Legislature, it seems to regularly fail to do; each party's House and Senate contingents seem to be in lock-step on all but the smallest details (you generally have to get down to the wording of particular bills to find differences between Senate and House versions, the intent is rarely very different on major issues). So I'm not sure that I would be dismissing the concept of a House of Lords so quickly. If I were a UK citizen (subject?) I'd be awfully reticent to throw away anything that might act as a brake on the rest of government, however anachronistic it might seem. If they were trying to drag the entire country back to the 17th century I might feel less cautious, but it doesn't seem like there's any evidence of that.

However bad you think your government is now, with enough meddling it could always get spectacularly worse in a hurry.

Yes, but not in full since the SCOTUS appeal was declined; and again, IAmNotALawyer; I'm just a bright layman.

Thus my point about jurisdiction. Purposeful availment = some other interaction that lets you know that the person you're dealing with is coming from that community. It's pretty clearly more than just putting something on a website.

Thank you! The Toys & Zippo cases referenced by the 3rd C. are quite enlightening. On the plus side, they seems to imply to my lay ears that if you're running a free public gallery, with content available to anyone who visits, there is no purposeful jurisdictional availment; which ergo may benefit ars gratia artis (and porna gratia pornae).

On the minus side, it still seems to require that any adult e-commerce site become familiar with the particular local community standards for every person who asks to subscribe, since even one customer in the jurisdiction has the potential to meet the test. Thus, we go right back to the unknowable multiplicity of applications that the Nitke plaintiffs seem to be arguing.

As you originally said, it's a little bit of help, at least for those not out to make a buck. I've only rarely felt a need to pay for porn, given the free abundance. (Which may be tied to commercial market conditions, but anyway....) Also, given the unarousing crap that is becoming prevalent on many commercial sites, perhaps getting porn production back into purely amateur, er... hands?... might be a good thing. =P

The Optical SETI project has efforts in a number of places. The article refers to the Link Observatory but there is also an effort in Boston at the Harvard Observatory. Here is a link which also points to some Whitepapers:

Maybe this has something to do with Bush's apparent love of killing Canadians. Case in Point

If you are interested in DNA nanotech, definitely check out the SciAm article by Ned Seeman (the founder of the field). Here are some links to lab pages:

Ned Seeman
William Shih
Eric Winfree
John Reif

Try reading this Harvard article discussing what the major contributor to global temperature rise is. In short, its the sun. http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/1997/11.06/Bri ghteningSuni.html Alarmist liberals never have any facts... the truth is that there are other factors that contribute to global rise in temperature. There has been reduced volcanic activity since the mid-1800's. Volcanoes reduce global temperatures by ejecting materials into the atmosphere that block the sun, and make the planet cooler. Air quality has been improving steadily over the past 3 decades, while emmisions have been reduced. Research will prevent you from being an uneducated liberal. That is what makes Sean and Rush the successes that they are and Air America the failure that it is.

Hi, everyone. I wrote one of the original news releases about this planet discovery, so I'm very interested in the discussion of whether the "super-Earth" is exciting news or not. When I first found out about the planet (I work at Ohio State University; one of our astronomers heads the team that identified it) I knew I had to write a news release (I mean, this is a new planet!) but I also had to wonder how much of a splash the story would make in the media.

Some 170 extrasolar planets have been discovered in the last decade, so there's already been a lot of news coverage. But it's easy to forget that before a decade ago, scientists had no real evidence of what other solar systems are like. This planet is unusual in that it's terrestrial, and its solar system doesn't seem to have any giant gas planets like Jupiter. So the find expands our ideas about what kinds of solar systems are out there, and it also suggests that we're getting closer to our goal of finding other Earth-mass planets.

There's more information in the Ohio State news release, and the one written by my colleagues at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. There are also lots of other news stories out there right now, most notably by New Scientist, National Geographic, and Space.com.

Pam Gorder